Larry Jones

Implementation of control surface functions between Impact LX+ series and Cakewalk (also SONAR) has been terrible for me since day one. It's hard enough to learn a device like this when it works as expected, but the Nektar Impact doesn't do what it's advertised to do. Run a search on this forum for "nektar" (or maybe this link will work) and you'll see what I mean. I haven't contacted Nektar directly myself, but those who have say they got no help.

Thanks, @Craig Anderton. I didn't mean to imply that the site is an official arm of Avid or Pro Tools. I should have made myself clearer. The site began life as an unofficial Pro Tools site, and they have now expanded to be an unofficial Logic and Studio One site. And they have apparently obtained copyrights on the notion that they are the "experts" on those DAWS.

Good points, @Jim Roseberry. For me it boils down to "Where there's a will, there's a way," meaning if I (or you) really want to work with someone on a project we will figure out how to do it, regardless of what software each of us may be using. All the other hoo-ha is just noise.

It actually is a Pro Tools site (note their domain name). They have expanded to other DAWS, however, and have actually copyrighted the phrases "Pro Tools Expert," "Logic Pro Expert," and "Studio One Expert," so no one else can be an official internet "expert" on any of those products. Maybe you or I should copyright "Total Expert on Everything." From their disclaimer in the footer: Pro Tools Expert, Logic Pro Expert, Studio One Expert and Production Expert are all copyright and cannot be used without permission.

Good news. Enjoy the music makin'!

This may be because your sample rate and bit depth settings in Cakewalk don't match your Windows system settings, and ASIO4ALL is not releasing when you switch to other programs (your browser, for example). A dedicated audio interface is usually better at this. In the mean time you might try setting up Windows the same way you have Cakewalk set up. (I would guess the default in Windows is 16/44.1, but I've messed around with my settings so many times I can't remember what it was out of the box.)

@SomeGuy: I haven't found it particularly difficult to work with people not using CbB, although it's easier when they are. I'm familiar with most of the available professional-level DAWs and have done commercial work with some of them, but I'm a long-time Cakewalker, I do the majority of the writing, playing and singing on my own projects, and CbB remains my first choice. So it's pointless to suggest that I'd be better off changing platforms. What I said in my comment on the magazine article itself is that CbB is a powerful, full-featured DAW, and that Bandlab has improved its stability and increased the level of staff support, and that the fact that it's now available for free shouldn't make anyone think it's inferior. I believe those are true statements. I wrote what I wrote to spread the word that CbB is a viable solution that has been under development for a long time and is currently being improved and maintained. If more people use it, I'll be likely to run into more people who use it. Simples. That said, thanks for 'splainin' things to me.

@gargonknight Before calling it a day, check here for troubleshooting this and other support info. I don't think you will lose all your projects.

I added my two cents in the comments. The more people who use CbB, the more people I can collaborate with trouble-free.

Try freezing the track.

It will help you in the future to read more than just the title of a post.

I'm going to guess that it will work, except for the possibility that there's a registry entry that you will also have to delete when you uninstall Theme Editor. I don't know enough to guide you on this, but be careful!

I master my own recordings in my own clumsy, DIY way -- right or wrong, I get them sounding the way I want them to sound, and over the years I've learned from here and elsewhere and from experience and gotten a little better at it. So my question is not "how to master," but rather "how to master a collection of recordings." I mean if you have, for example, eight songs recorded and you want to put them together in the old-fashioned "album" format, how do you go about it? Obviously you have to decide on a song sequence, but once you've done that do you put all your mixes on the timeline in the correct order? And what if each track requires slightly different settings for EQ, compression and level in order to make the entire project feel like it's all one piece of work? I guess you could create a region for each track and apply these FX as needed for each region. I usually make my homemade masters of individual songs in Sound Forge 11, but I've never tried to make a collection of songs fit together as a coherent whole. Is there an app for this? For what it's worth I use CbB for all my projects, but I also own Studio One 4, Samplitude X3 and Sound Forge. Years ago I acquired CD Architect 5.2, which tries to do what I'm talking about, but is not compatible with VSTs. Or is this idea really just too old fashioned? Does anyone release digital albums? Do 21st century listeners even listen to whole albums? Any thoughts on this?

That's a pretty big flaw. I'd say it would be a dealbreaker in any DAW. If you don't want help, fine - use your Mixcraft. But if you'd like to get it working I suggest you edit the name of your post to something that describes the problem -- so people will read it -- and include a few more details in your post, like what soft synth won't load, has it worked before, how are you trying to load it, etc. Best of luck!

Another place you can hear bad mixes: on the radio. Mostly on older pop records, it can get pretty bad, with buried vocals, missing bass, guitar solos that jump out of the speakers. The thing is, some of these bad mixes are on recordings that were on the charts for weeks and made the artists famous. Not saying you shouldn't do everything you can, but sometimes you should probably resist trying to "perfect" your mix, especially if you've got a good song, a great performance and the right energy.

Same here. I would note, however, that I did list my version of Melodyne in my original post as well as in this follow-up comment.

My bad. I thought it might be something like that, and I should have been more clear. Thanks!

Continuing from previous post: Installed the new version of Melodyne (4.2.2.004), opened the same project, and voila! - I have blobs. I tried a short region and a long region, and blobs appeared in the Melodyne editor, although I had to chase around a little to find them as they did not appear in the visible portion of the editor on my screen. I still don't have the option you show in your screenshot @Noel Borthwick, but at least the plugin now seems to be usable. This project was always just a test project. I'll have to use Melodyne on something bigger to be sure it's really working, but for now I'm happy -- except for not really knowing why it's working now and not before, or why I don't have the same Options menu as Noel.

Back from my travels. Tried to follow your screenshot @Noel Borthwick but I don't have the choice to set clips to follow selection: Also, so far this evening, no blobs. Also, I just noticed that a Melodyne region that I thought I had rendered last week is not only still there, but it is the entire track, not just the region I selected originally. Also, I created a short Melodyne region, got no blobs, then discovered that I cannot Remove Region FX - that option is greyed out in the Melodyne menu, as is all the other options except for "Create Region FX. Undoing back to "start" doesn't get rid of the region, either. Closing without saving and reopening doesn't help - the Melodyne region is still there, with no option to remove it, and no Melodyne editor. I'm running Cakewalk by Bandlab 2019.05 (Build 31) and Melodyne Editor 4.2.1.003, but as I type I am downloading the latest Melodyne update (4.2.2.004). Since I have to restart my computer to complete the installation, I'll post this, restart, see if there's any improvement, and report back - right away, I hope.

Thanks @Noel Borthwick! Since I access Melodyne the same way each time and get intermittent "no blobs" results, my problem may not be related to what you write above. When I get back to town later this week I'll test again using the good information you provided, and report back. I really appreciate your input on this.

FYI, the latest version of Melodyne is 4.2.1.003. And despite some issues, the latest version of Cakewalk is working well with the latest version of Melodyne. Unfortunately for me, I am having issues. I'd still recommend going ahead and updating.

Do you mean "Options|Note Editor|Clip Mode?" The Note Editor flyout is one of the things that's greyed out when this happens. On my system, "Track Mode" is the one that has the checkmark, and I can't change it. On occasions when the blobs are displayed this menu item is active.

'preciate it, Craig. Take a look at Harry C.'s problem, too. It looks a lot like mine. I don't know if it would be a GUI issue, though, because when there are no blobs, most of the Melodyne menu items are greyed out, too. The blobs are (evidently) not just invisible. They really are not there.

I can confirm this is really happening. Before I saw this thread I posted one of my own, describing a problem just like this one, only in my case it's intermittent and random.

I'm running Cakewalk by Bandlab 2019.05 (Build 31) and Melodyne Editor 4.2.1.003. I think these are the latest versions of both. When Melodyne works, it's great, but it's hit or miss when I create a region FX with it. Sometimes when the editor opens I have blobs, and sometimes not. I have tried making sure my timeline cursor is in the region. I have selected long regions (12 measures) and short ones (less than one bar), and it's erratic either way -- sometimes I get blobs, and sometimes not. If I have no blobs I can't do anything, so I "remove region fx" and try again. Eventually it works, but it doesn't seem to be related to anything I'm doing. It just decides to work. Any ideas about this? Thanks! UPDATE: Just noticed this other thread about what seems to be the same problem. User thinks it might be in the German version of Melodyne, but I'm using the English version.